Page 110 of The Plan

We head for the door, and I grab my keys. “I have to make a quick stop. I’ll meet you there.”

“Stop where? The meeting with Fred is in twenty minutes, Sire. You’re—”

“I’m not going to be late, August.” Before he can voice another protest, I walk out and head for my car. When I make it to the frat house, Brad walks up to my car.

“What’s up, bro?” He daps me up, and we make our exchange. I give him a ’thank you’ nod, and he taps the tops of my car before I speed off. I drive into the parking lot and park next to August’s car. I check the time, and I still have eight minutes before I’m late.

I reach into my glove compartment and pull out a random pamphlet. I place it on my lap and then look around the car for something to crush with. I notice Vidia’s pastel blue hydro flask and reach over to the passenger door, grabbing it.

I place one Oxy pill onto the pamphlet before I quickly crush and sniff it. When I pick my head back up, my eyes lock on hers. I can’t tell if she just saw that, but I don’t care. I get lost in hereyes, and the view is better than any feeling these pills can give me.

She rolls her eyes and starts to walk off. I quickly wipe my nose, grab her water bottle, and get out of the car, following after her.

“Vid!” She ignores me and picks up her pace, but I catch up. “Here.” I hand her her water bottle, grateful for an excuse to talk to her.

“Keep it.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Well, neither do I.” She doesn’t want it anymore because I was the one who bought it for her. It was the second time we went to the aquarium when she helped me overcome my fear and held me as we walked under the tunnel of water.

I didn’t have a panic attack as she held my hand, and I wanted to thank her, so I bought her this. Now that I think about it, it was a dumb thank-you gift.

“Your nose is bleeding.” I bring my hand to my nose and wipe the blood away. This is such an annoying side effect of sniffing. She stares at me, and for a quick second, it looks like she’s concerned. If she was, it’s wiped off her face, and she looks mad again.

“Vid, can we talk?”

“I don’t ever want to see you again, Sire. Can you just do that one thing for me?” Without another word, she walks off, and I don’t stop her. She’s hurting. We just lost a baby we didn’t know we could've had, and she blames me. I tell myself I’ll give her space before explaining that I was never using her.

The meeting goes by quickly, or at least it feels like that due to the Oxy. He asks me about my injury, and August does most of the talking when I take more than five seconds to think of an answer.

He tells him about my surgery and how I’ll be in physical therapy but reassures him that the doctors said I’ll make a full recovery. I zone out, and I think I look like I’m paying attention because August and I are shaking Fred’s hand before I know it, thanking him for meeting with us.

“I should be thanking the two of you, really.”I beg to differ since he’s the one offering us a seat on his team.He says he’ll fax over the paperwork for us to sign, and once we do, it’ll be set in stone. We’ll officially be on the LA Dodgers.

As we walk out of our coach's office, August heads for the bathroom, and I notice Vidia and our coach talking about something. Neither of them looks very happy.

“Is everything okay, V?”V?How does Fred know her? She turns to us and then makes it clear that she also knows Fred.

“Hey, Uncle Chammy.”Chammy?It clicks in my head that Fred is one of the coaches Vid told me about. The one that has a history with her mom. They apparently never dated, but he was around a lot when Vid was younger.What are the fucking odds?

My dream team, linked to Vidia. Of all coaches and sponsors I’ve been looking at for years. She’s linked to him.

“I was just asking the baseball coach here what his policy was on his team using drugs.” I feel my heart skip a few beats, and the high I was previously in is gone as reality snaps.What is she doing?

“Well, I hope he has zero tolerance for it because I certainly do.” My eyes lock on Vidia, and there's a fire in her eyes I’ve never seen before.Don’t.

“In that case, you probably want to drug test the captain since he’s an addict, and I just saw him sniffing something in the parking lot.” I go completely still, and I feel like I forgot how to breathe.

I’m hallucinating. They laced the Oxy with something, and I’m fucking hallucinating. There’s no way in fucking hell she justsaid that shit. Fred looks over at me, and so does our coach. They watch me for a response, but I’m stuck.Am I even breathing?

Maybe I’m too high to respond or too high to be mad at her, but I simply cannot grasp the thought that she just said that. She stares back at me like she has no regrets that she just used my addiction against me.

The addiction I told no one about besides the five people I call family and her. We hold eye contact and speak with our eyes.You’re a fucking traitor, and this is low as fuck. No matter what I did to you, this is fucked up, and I’ll never forgive you for it, so go straight to fucking hell.

As if she somehow understood me, hurt flashes in her eyes, and she spins on her heels, walking out of the office, knowing she just threw my entire fucking future away.

I zone out as I sit back down. Fred says something about trusting Vidia with his life.Yeah, I did, too.He apologizes and then says I need to take a drug test, and if I pass, I can still be signed with him. When he walks out, August walks in.

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